


Trip The Darkness

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Series: 30 Days of Dark Fandom Challenge (ACOTAR) [5]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Horror, And this Fanfic got Out of Hand, But he's just here to watch, Crack, Dark Crack, Everyone is Queer, F/F, F/M, Horror, M/M, Multi, The Inner Circle is a Law Firm, The Summer Court is a College Swim Team, Urban Legends, Varian is supposed to be the protagonist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 04:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12247257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: In a reluctant attempt to get his cousin into his dream law firm, Varian agrees to attend a party withstrangers. As if that wasn't enough of a horror story, urban legends are tested, and his cousin won't stop walking in on him having baths. It's a hard life.___________A tale in which straight people go missing, salt-goblins populate the earth, and the second act devolves into actual horror and smut. So, you know, the usual.





	1. The Compact Mirror of Doom

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Vamren, Urban Legends
> 
> This chapter is rated T and contains sexual references.

“V, can you please hurry the fuck up?” Tarquin is yelling like the pissy little type-A fascist he is. “Did I not mention how Rhysand is going to be there tonight? You know, that guy, dunno if I’ve talked about him before? _The_ deciding factor of my future career? Man I have aspired to be my entire life? The legend I have not four, but _five_ posters of in the room your naked ass is in right now?”

“You are so fucking gay,” Cresseida, the gold star lesbian, mutters from where she’s no doubt texting her girlfriend upon the bed.

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure law firms don’t hire based on how well you can swim, T.” Varian is doing his very bestest best _not_ to lose his shit with his well-meaning cousin, but after the past month of hearing nothing but ‘Rhysand this’ and ‘Rhysand that’ from the man he lives, swims, and studies with, his patience is wearing a teensy bit on the skimpy side.

“I don’t now about that,” Cress says, pauses to snap a quick duck-faced selfie, and continues, “I mean have you _seen_ his team? I’m pretty sure they were all chosen based on how hot they look naked.”

“I really don’t want to know how you’ve come to witness that,” Varian mutters, because if anyone has the keys to the kingdom that grants them access to _the_ top law firm’s nudity pics, it’s Cress. Especially when, within one week of brushing shoulders with them, she starting dating the most notorious Ice Queen of them all.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry uuuppp,” Tarquin pleads, practically vibrating in the doorway as he tries to will Varian’s clothes on faster.

“God, he’s so desperate for those dick pics,” Cress says with a sly smile at her brother, who only manages to resist returning it under the knowledge that he will be throttled by his roommate and cousin later if he relents.

Ignoring the others’ increasingly loud (and violent) argument over the sexual habits of The Inner Circle’s partners, Varian zips up his hoodie, snatches his bag over one shoulder, and bolts out of the door. “Tarquin, you’re making us late!”

“Yeah Tarquin,” Cress echoes, somehow hot on his heels despite her six inch ones.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about his future.”

“Did he mention this meet was important? I don’t recall.”

Piling out of their shit-pit student housing, they’re all in hysterics as they race one another to the University gym (since they’re all cheapskates and refuse to blow good booze money on a taxi). Of course, Tarquin takes it way too seriously and deadsprints his way through crowds and traffic alike, whilst Varian gets roped into giving his sister a piggyback since she’s far too refined to have to walk anywhere. Despite photographic evidence stored on iphones that she is anything but refined, she still wins the argument, and that is that.

The city is resting in its uncanny transition state, where the diligent return home to work, and the heathens start toppling out of their caves to scamper off for pre-drinks at some poor bastard’s dorm. Winter’s left the air a below-freezing combination of insidious winds and sleet, and the sky lost all warmth hours ago, half lit by sunset, half by the glare of car headlights.

It is not a pretty city at the best of times, at least not out where the student housing resides. Telephone wires on nearly every street are conspicuously decorated with a pair of shoes to indicate from where one might purchase salubrious chemical substances, and no way in hell would any of their black asses be out here alone at nightfall.

Still, it’s home, and after far too many years of falling into student debt, they know where the good bars are, enough friendly faces to feel welcome, and every other building is dedicated to a kind of fast food that no one would dare eat even remotely sober, and they’ve dined at them all. Cress was converted from a conservative, closeted angry salt-goblin into a marxist, extraordinarily gay angry salt-goblin here. Varian learned to work with his selective mutism there, and Tarquin, thank fucking finally, lost his virginity (and to a really, _really_ hot redhead at that) there.

It might be a garbage trashfire, but it is their garbage trashfire.  

With a six foot two muscle beast latched onto his six foot eight muscle king back, Varian still manages to arrive at the sports centre on time, drop his rider off to go  take a seat and do some networking, and get changed before the meet starts. Tarquin being Tarquin, he is already out there warming up and looking damn beautiful while he does it, but screw him. Varian isn’t here to impress anyone. He just wants to swim.

Once he hits the water, that’s it. Tarquin and Cress and all of it melts away in an instant. Though their coach is yelling instructions and corrections from the poolside, underwater, everything is mute. All his awareness is lodged into the drag of his limbs cutting through viscous fluid, the ache of his oxygen-starved muscles, the way it feels like he’s dying until that next breath hits, and it’s better than any other high chemistry or life can give him.

“Your fam’s pretty good,” Nesta admits however begrudgingly from up on the bleachers.

“Yeah well, when you grow right next to the sea _and_ an olympic swimming pool it’s hard not to get infected by the bug.” Cress is a lot more interested in making out that talking about her lame ass relatives, but then she _is_ supposed to be endearing Tarquin to the lot of them. “Honestly, they’ve spent so much time in the ocean I’m surprised they haven’t gotten it pregnant.”

“Your bro’s a fucking _beast_ ,” Cassian - ‘the actual giant’ in Cress’s mental filing system, since names are too much effort - breathes, watching the swimming below like it isn’t just casual practice but a race. “What the hell does he eat? You have got to tell me his regime.”

“Uh. You can ask RiRi about that.” The day Cress discusses sweaty men with interest is the same day hell freezes over.

And it is that fatal comment that leads to Cassian literally pouncing on Varian when he emerges from the changing rooms after practice. “Dude. _Dude_.” He is about to refuse for the millionth time to join a bloody fraternity, but Tarquin beats him to the chase.

“Cassian! I didn’t know you were coming too.”

“Tarquin, the legend himself! You were killer out there.” The giant hooks his arm around his shoulder and ruffles his hair, which has Tarquin _blushing_ and oh hell, did Tarquin sleep with a frat bro?

“V, meet Cassian. Cassian, V.  Cassian’s one of Rhysand’s team.”

“The one and only.” Cassian grins as his gaze returns to his original target. “V Dude, you have got to come out with us tonight. You were a fucking _animal_ out there.”

“Uh, I don’t really-” Parties with strangers are something like the true location of Dante’s Inferno to Varian, but his cousin is looking at him with such intensity and force that he somehow ends up saying. “I mean. Sure. Where-?”

Where turns out to be Rhysand’s palace of a home, an outer city complex that has an electronic gate, its own pool, a hedged maze, everything. If this is how Tarquin is going to live when he becomes a lawyer superstar, maybe Varian should stop teasing him so much… wouldn’t be worth it, but still. It _is_ an astonishing house.

As it is with every scenario where he’s forced to make conversation with strangers, it’s awkward at first. But - and it may well be thanks to the alcohol - after not that long at all, it becomes apparent that these are actually decent people.

Azriel, the one Cress would apparently be happy to lose her gold star for, shares his vibe of general discomfort in public, and has a similar scathing sense of humor to match. A woman named Morrigan, who is the biggest ‘mom friend’ Varian has ever encountered, is pretty much sunshine and wine given human form, and her partner Vassa is so passionate about everything that it’s like meeting Cress’s brain transplanted into someone else’s body.

Even Cassian turns out to be kind of secretly awesome, still abusing the word ‘dude’, yes, but rather than acting like a total fuckboy he spends every minute with the gang ensuring no one gets hurt, and turning all barbed comments into some hilarity where he’s the butt of the joke. As for Nesta… Varian actually hasn’t seen her since they stepped inside, whisked off somewhere unholy no doubt by a wicked faced Cress.

The unveiling of the _legendary_ Rhysand is admittedly a little anticlimactic. He isn’t some up his own ass douchebag like Varian had pictured, but - despite what the newspapers say about him - seems earnestly _nice_. He holds his fiance’s hand almost constantly, makes sure everyone is fed and watered and wined, has a sense of humour right out of a bawdy 1950s comedy it’s so laced in innuendoes, and cannot stop enthusing to Tarquin about their past cases. He and Feyre watch Tarquin with the kind of subtle, assessing curiosity that leaves Varian 99% certain Cress’s theory that they were interested in a threeway is correct, but their interest in enrolling him into the company seems just as genuine.  

Around midnight, Varian finds himself alone with Mor, Vassa, and surprisingly, Nesta, Cress passed out on the couch behind them. “This place is so creepy when it’s quiet,” Mor whispers, careful not to wake the woman they are all gathered around. Armed with permanent markers, they perform their mandatory duty as fellow drinkers. It’ll be interesting to see how Cress copes with nine am lectures looking like the lovechild of Dali, Harry Potter, and obligatory-penis-drawing-on-cheeks.

“My poor baby,” Vassa cooes, nuzzling her cheek before grinning a little too deviously. “Did I ever tell you the story of-”

“Shh, don’t,” Mor protests, shoving them off and snickering. “I am awful with ghost stories.”

“Please.” Nesta admires her ‘Property of Nesta’ brand on her girlfriend’s stomach before staring down the others. “Ghost stories are for children. Have you ever played Bloody Mary?”

“Oh yeah, because _that’s_ not for kids,” Vassa snips back in the same frosty tone they’ve addressed Nesta with all evening. The way Mor rests a warning hand on their shoulder does not go unnoticed.

“I’ll take that as a _no_ then,” Nesta sneers unkindly. “If you had, you’d know it is definitely not for kids. Not when you do it properly.”

“Oooh, so frightening.” Vassa pecks the top of the blonde head hiding against their shoulder, but does not back down. “So, if you’ve done this terrible, adult horror, how come you’re alive?”

Sighing, Nesta perches crisply on the sofa arm and crosses her ankles, posing as if she were a school teacher lecturing small children. “Listen. Kids always fuck up these stories. Bloody Mary isn’t some random spirit who comes to kill you because you _daaared_ speak her name, and it is so fucking annoying when everyone says she’s Queen Mary come to avenge everyone for her miscarriages. Like, can a woman’s narrative please not just be about conception and motherhood for once?

“The actual Bloody Mary tradition wasn’t always so supernatural. Back in feudal times, women from all over would invoke Bloody Mary in windows or by lakes to send a signal to other women. It was to mark out to others who knew of this rite that they were being abused by someone that they themselves couldn’t silence. It was said that whenever a woman did this, her revenge would be carried out within three days.

“Of course, the original ‘Bloody Mary’s who did this all died out after some time, but the tradition stayed. Women started enacting it in the privacy of bathrooms where they wouldn’t be disturbed, at first into sinks and basins of water, then later, mirrors. And the tradition stayed. Why? Because it _worked_ . The spirits of those avenging women still come when called. And _that’s_ why little dumbass children giggle about it and think it as a game. It doesn’t work unless you call for someone else to be visited by Bloody Mary.”

Even Varian, who struggles to believe the weather forecast let alone ghost stories, has goosebumps. Maybe it was just the way Nesta told it, with the same intensity and masked anger that she says everything, but it felt real. As if she’d been there. As if she’s really seen it work. “Who did you set it on?” Vassa asks, their indignant antipathy mollified by the nervous quiver in their voice. Nesta smirks, and that smirk is the most frightening part of all.

“Well, there’s a reason you don’t see my father anymore.”

Judging by the silence, she isn’t lying about the dead father. Mor is clinging onto Vassa so tight they’re struggling to breathe properly whilst she releases a kind of high pitch whine into the muffling of their jacket. “Look, I’ll show you,” Nesta says, pulling out a round makeup container. She pops the lid, and shows them all proof of the small, circular mirror on the flipside. With her lighter, she produces a flickering flame which casts ominous streaks of shadows across her features, especially since she purposefully holds it beneath her chin.

Closing her eyes, she inhales and exhales slowly, stretches out her neck. When her eyes snap open, she stares straight into the compact, unblinking. “Bloody Mary.” Her voice is little more than a rasp, barely audible. “Bloody Mary.” Varian knows she’s just affecting it to lend to the dramatic effect, but he finds himself wishing he could be anywhere but here right now. Nesta’s hand starts shaking.

“Bloody Mary.” The flame sputters out.

Mor is openly screaming by this point, hiding underneath the back of Vassa’s jacket so she doesn’t have to look. Even they are braced, knuckles white as they clench onto their knees, waiting. “I cast you upon Varian. A visit, to him you shall pay. Avenger of women, Bloody Mary, be on your way.”

The light clicks on. “The fuck are you all doing down here in the dark?” Cassian asks from the far door, wrapped in a silk kimono that is the size and shape of a Feyre body, not a Cassian body. “Are we telling ghost stories? Because I have got-”

“What do you want, Cass?” Vassa asks, all colour drained from their cheeks. He scratches the back of his neck.

“Hey Vass. Well uh- I mean, Az and I were just wondering if you had any… ya know. _Spares_.”

Exclaiming in irritation, Vassa storms over to him and grabs him by the arm, taking him off either for a lecture or to retrieve condoms, Varian isn’t too sure. Either way, he’s left with a teary-eyed Mor and a woman who just ordered his assassination. “No hard feelings right, Varian?” Said executioner says cheerfully. “I mean, it’d be kinda fucked up if I sentenced my girlfriend to death, and I kinda owe Mor after dumping her so-”

“I’m going to bed,” Varian announces. Whatever the hell this night turned into, it wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and the whole thing feels too surreal for him to handle whilst drunk and among strangers. He gives Mor a thin attempt of a comforting smile in parting, before trekking off to find a spare room to crash in. The sooner he passes out, the better.

 

* * *

 

“I’m in heaven,” Tarquin says, with far too romantic a sigh given how he’s taking a leak.

“Okay well, can you please hurry up and move in with your new poly bosses so that I can regain some semblance of privacy.” Varian still hasn’t gotten used to how his cousin does not give a fuck when he is or is not having a bath, he will cheerfully siddle in and whip his dick out regardless. There is a reason Cress refuses to live with them, and this is it.

“They’re so perfect. I think I’m in love.”

“You’ve known them for one month. Just because they showed you the world and all it’s shimmering splendor last night, doesn’t mean you get to fantasise about them whilst pissing in front of me. Please make this stop. Why is this happening to me?”

“I just.” Thankfully the dick is put away before Tarquin starts clutching at his chest. “I just have never felt like this before, you know. I’ve never met other people who want to use law to change the world. Everyone else is always in it for the money or the game or-”

However that sentence finishes, Varian elects to avoid it by sinking into the bathwater and blowing bubbles until he can see the door being shut above surface. It’s awesome having your cousin as your best friend, especially when he is such a Good Guy™, but sometimes he needs space. Bathroom space at the minimum.

Bath officially ruined, he gives up on nursing his hangover in the soap suds and scoops himself out of the tub. Towelling himself off, he makes sure the phone numbers Azriel and Cassian scribed on his forearm are still visible for later use and goes to crack open the window to let the steam out. His habit of-

He doesn’t manage to finish that thought when he sees something in the mirror. It is the briefest of flashes, but he could have sworn he saw a silhouette glide across the bathroom behind him. Staring hard in the mirror, he waits.

He does not see it again.

Though being scared is stupid, his brain thinks of something even stupider. “Bloody Mary,” he whispers into the fogged up reflection, his breath pooling into droplets upon it. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”

The door slams open.

“Sorry my Little Mermaid, forgot my phone.” Tarquin dashes in and out, mobile on the window shelf vanishing with him.

“Stop peeing and texting,” Varian yells after him, furious, though for all the wrong reasons. “You’re turning into Cresseida.”

“That you know this is disturbing!” Tarquin shouts back up at him, already down in the kitchen putting his shoes on for this evening’s date with Feyre and Rhysand.

“Moron,” Varian mutters to his reflection, not sure which one of them he’s referring too. No big bad scary monster emerges from the mirror. No woman drenched in blood comes to steal his soul.

Three days, Nesta had said. “It’s just a scary story.”

 

* * *

 

“Did you have to spook my brother like that?” Cress asks of her human pillow, whose stomach she is currently lying across. When she gets no response, Nesta in way too deep with researching the opposition of her current case, she adds an elbow in the ribs to her polite curiosity. “Seriously, you’ve really freaked him out. He’s all jumpy and keeps getting all hissy when I chase him with my compact.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Nesta mumbles with a wry smile, chewing her fountain pen as she clicks through a stream of tabs. “But seriously, I wasn’t trying to spook him or anything. I only went full theatre prodigy on them to scare Mor. She _loves_ getting freaked out.” Even in spite of her absorption in her casework, Nesta manages to pick up on the following silence. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“It’s cool,” Cress says a little too casually, keeping her gaze trained on her phone screen, just clicking on and off of her text messages despite it not bleeping. “Like, I get that you’re not over her yet. So whatever.” Unconvinced by this shit display of apathy, Nesta slips out from under her and shimmies over to lie next to her on the bed, nose to nose.

“I love you too, you know that, right?” She says quietly.

Cress doesn’t say anything. She just kisses her, and returns to refreshing her phone.

“It’s not true though, is it?” She doesn’t look up from candy crush as she speaks. “Like, I’m not going to be de-siblinged tomorrow, am I?”

“Cress, I was talking out of my _ass_ when I made that stuff up. Plus I was super drunk. Honestly, I’m just salty I didn’t come up with something better. I mean, I bitched about motherhood narratives - but way to defy the stereotype, I think _not_. Your brother will be just fine.”

Staring at her, Cresseida considers for a moment before pecking her on the lips. “Okay. I love you too.”

 


	2. There's A Light In The Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still rated T.

There is an hour left until the third day is over, and by now, this whole Bloody Mary nonsense has being a ‘thing’. Cassian, Azriel, and Tarquin’s ex Lucien are all snuggled up on the couch together munching on popcorn, a supply being pilfered by an equally enraptured Mor (whose partner refused to participate in the evening based on moral outrage at the whole lot of them encouraging Nesta’s malice). Feyre and Rhysand are both sat upon Tarquin’s lap, Cressida and Nesta are braiding Elain’s hair, Helion - Rhysand’s business partner - and his friends Thesan, Maern and Kallias have converted Rhys’s coffee table into a couch, and some blonde dickhead has also joined them. Point is, there’s a fuck ton of people here to witness Varian’s impending doom, to the point where it’s possibly offensive. He’ll decide if he’s angry or not once he knows if he’s dead.

“I’m so tense. Look at me, I’ve got goosebumps. Oh my god I can’t,” Mor continues to ramble, as she has been for the past hour. As Cresseida warned them she would, she is enjoying this far too much.

“Mmm, same,” Helion chimes in from where he has casually got his arms around two of his friends, whilst the other rests in his lap. “This feels like the beginning of an orgy to me. The suspense is killing me.”

The sound of people telling him to fuck off doesn’t quite manage to hide those who murmur encouragement for the idea. “Can you please be a little more respectful at my brother’s funeral,” Cress snips whilst weaving flowers into the braids she’s crafting. “Let the deadman live out his final hour in peace.”

“I’m offering him an orgy with a collection of people who are all impossibly attractive, to the point where it is a violation of statistics. I don’t know how the rest of you are so calm. The only time I’ve seen this many conventionally hot people in one room is in pornography, and even then, we’ve got them beaten.”

It really doesn’t help Varian’s turbulent stomach-storm when they all start arguing about a) the ethics of orgy proposals and b) who’s the hottest. Then the weather decides to help out and thunder rumbles throughout the house. “Good weather to die to,” Nesta notes too calmly into the silence that has fallen. They all wait for Helion to add the anticipated ‘good weather to fuck to’ line, but even he has fallen into a too-still disquiet.

Together they sit around Rhysand’s living room in total darkness, watching the clock tick closer and closer to midnight. Though Mor is still whispering fretfully to herself, the only other sound is their shallow breathing, and the clicking of the second hand. Outside, thunder crashes throughout the sky once more. Minutes pass, and then, lightning strikes.

In the reflection of the french windows, Varian sees someone standing on the patios, a slight figure illuminated by the flash of static discharge. He dismisses it as just another hallucination. But then Morrigan starts screaming.

As the rest of them catch sight of the figure now spurting in and out of their vision as lightning crackles across the sky, it becomes impossible to know who is screaming, or what is happening. In one flash, the door has opened, and by the next, the figure has vanished. Someone is begging explicitly to be spared, a resounding crash echoes around the room as the coffeetable is overturned.

Someone grabs Varian by the shoulders. For all his muscle and height, he is powerless. Frozen stiff, he can’t even move. He just sucks in air and fails to scream as-

“Surprise!” Someone who is definitely Cassian yells as Rhysand flicks the light switch on. Vassa, gripping Varian by the shoulders, joins in with the cackling, whilst their audience stares on in stunned silence.

“Oh your face,” they snigger, releasing him to grab their stomach for laughing to hard. “I swear to god, so worth it. Do you guys know how long I had to stand out there in the rain waiting for you to all shut up and let me get all spooky? Nice lighting though, if I do say so myself.”

“Perfect timing, Vass,” Cassian says, swooping over to them and throwing and arm around their shoulder, grinning the pair of them at the others. “We hope you enjoyed tonight’s entertainment, and hope you all have a wonderful new year!”

Amongst the condemnations of the playwrights to the deepest depths of tartarus, Varian is left looking at the windows. The one on the left is still open, banging against its frame in the wind. There is only one problem.

He didn’t see the figure in that one.

 

* * *

 

  


Christmas holidays are a strange thing for people trying to enter into a field so competitive that the mere concept of job security induces hysterical cackling. Whilst ninety percent of the student body vanishes into thin air to return to the warmth of home cooking, the law students remain. Not even the budding medics looks as haggard from their four am placement risings as the gremlins that track through the snow storms to take shelter in the library, clutching six-inch textbooks to their chest.

Tarquin, the bastard, has escaped this year. The Inner Circle has given him a bloody internship for the holidays, and they all know they are a couple of months away from offering him a provisional position in their ranks once he’s qualified. Not that Varian can blame them; Tarquin hasn’t got a cruel bone in his both, but he is ruthless when it comes to his practice. Though they formulated a bunch of bullshit no one believed, there was a reason the debate club banned him from attending.

Varian really ought to choose his close companions more carefully, because the only person who could be considered hot on Tarq’s heels is his sister. She doesn’t seem to give two flying fucks about working, however, since she’s off in Paris seducing her girlfriend and drinking more wine in four weeks than the country produce in a decade. The worst part is, she’ll skim read the prep-work the night before January exams and still come top of the class. Not even Tarquin can best her in the theoretical field of the law. She knows it suspiciously well.

Poor, simple Varian is thus stuck freezing his ears off and drinking piping hot coffee by the bucket to try and stay awake and warm. His days are spent surrounded by stacks upon stacks of reference texts, burrowed down in the library, whilst his nights are identical, except held at home with cheaper coffee and extra blankets to fight off having to pay for heating.

Damn Tarquin for making him think studying law was a good idea.

Come christmas eve, he finally decides that maybe, just maybe, he can have a few hours break. Cress has sent him a stream of pictures of a snow-covered Paris, and Tarquin keeps sending him emails every hour to show of his new ‘official’ Inner Circle email address. Yet, even though he’s not a Christian, it still feels incredibly lonely to be bundled up alone on Christmas evening.

Shoving a jacket over the pyjamas he’s been living in for the past week, he shuts all the lights off, ensures the house is locked behind him, and sets off at a jog. Not burdened by the addition of his sister and her heels this time, he arrives at the sports centre within ten minutes, barely out of breath. Most of the building is enshrouded by shadows, the only light on that of where the caretaker is scrubbing down the reception desk.

Being a lifeguard and gym bunny has its advantages. Varian raps his knuckles against the glass doors to have the caretaker light up with a grin when she spots him. Unlocking the doors for him, she opens it and says, “My favourite Aquaman. What are you doing out here this late?”

“January finals, Alis.”

“But it’s christmas eve!”

“But January finals.”  

She rolls her eyes at him. “There’s not any chance I could blag a midnight swim, is there?” He asks with a hopeful smile, really milking it and the puppy dog eyes when he adds, “It just helps me sleep, is all.”

“You’re going to get me fired if you keep doing this, you know that?” Alis retorts back with far too much perfect reason. Too bad logic never could compete with puppy dog eyes. “Oh heavens, yes, alright. You’re worst than my sons, I hope you know that.”

Hugging her profusely, given how she’s a family friend and also clearly a saint, Varian thanks her over and over until she tells him to zip it, and scurries in with his gym kit. “Usual place?” He asks. With a disparaging sigh, Alis just nods and tosses him the spare set of keys.

“If I go to jail for this, you’d better represent me.”

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll get Tarquin to represent you.”

Laughing, she shoos him away and returns to her dusting. Taking that as a goodbye, Varian is quick to slip into the locker rooms. He knows this place better than his own home, so even in the dark he knows his way through to the poolside. Finding the light system like Alis showed him, he flips a couple of switches until the cover has hauled itself back and underwater lights flood on, leaving it a mass of glistening, fluorescent blue amongst the inky black of night.

Swim meets are fun and all, but nothing compares to swimming alone in the middle of night, surrounded by darkness. He ploughs through a few dozen laps before coming to just float on his back, staring up at the invisible ceiling. Through the viewing screen, Alis gives him a wave, before she and the rest of the gym plunge into the black as well. He is alone in his own body of light and water, drifting. This and only this can drain the stress of overdoing it on the revision from from his body. It feels like flying, but _better_.

Only when he can spend a whole minute not thinking about arbitrations and plaintiffs and foreclosure does he return to slamming out laps. Once he forgets what those words even mean, he permits himself to haul himself onto the drains and catch his breath.

Shivering as the water chill sets in, he watches the surface ripple, casting light out across the shapes and shadows of the bleachers that he is so familiar with by daylight, turned alien and exciting by the isolation. Though it’s unfair on Alis for him to just sit there for so long and risk being caught, he gives just one more minute to his little slice of paradise in this world.

Following procedure his days supposedly saving people from drowning - though the worst thing that ever happened on his watch was someone with a hand cut - he clicks the lights off and sets about replacing the pool cover. In the dim light from streetlamps outside, the pool reflects the bleachers and his face back at him, a faint reminder of how soon, the campus will be full and noisy again. Perhaps he should enjoy the solitude a little more.

Just as he is thinking such happy thoughts, someone appears behind him. He cannot make out their face, but they are _right there_ by his shoulder, reaching out and- he turns to find no one there. Again.

This time, he laughs to himself. Cassian and his crew of mischievous pranksters got him way, way too good for him to ever be able to hold his head up in public again, the effects still lingering. He still jumps whenever he sees himself unexpectedly, and though he knows it’s idiocy, he avoids looking in the mirror in the morning or whenever he’s in the shower. The three days are well and truly up, but given how everyone keeps whispering ‘Bloody Mary’ to him whenever he’s not paying attention, he’s still a tadge on edge.

What lovely company he keeps.

Chuckling to himself about his friends’ antics, he secures the cover and retrieves his attire. He dumps his clothes on the bench and, on the way to the showers, lingers by the toilet stalls, gazing over at where he knows the mirrors are. Fuck it. This twitchiness has gotten to the moronic stage.

He crosses in the darkness, feeling his way around to grip the edges of a mirror. Though he can’t see a thing, he stares dead straight into one and enunciates with perfect clarity, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”

Nothing happens. As he expected. As he of course expected. Sighing, he shakes his head at himself and mutters once more, “Moron.” A hot shower awaits him, and after dumping his shorts back on the bench, he wanders off into the half-walled cubicle that houses the men’s showers. He turns one on and… you know what is great? Light is great, especially when it’s on and you’re not left in the dark with your own imagination.

Grabbing his iphone, he clicks the torch on and sets it screen-down on the ledge, far enough from the shower to avoid getting fucked up, but close enough to stop him being convinced of his inevitable demise. Relinquishing his paranoia to the last of the hot water, Varian decides then and there that his new year’s resolution is going to be to grow up and stop believing in fairytales.

Tipping his head back, he just stands and soaks. As always, he vehemently resents the showers for being the kind that you have to feverishly reassure you still care about by slamming the knob every thirty seconds, but at least the hot water’s still functioning. He can just about tolerate the incessant interruptions.

Come pause number who even knows anymore, he pauses. Squinting up in the torch light, he reaches up and thumbs the showerhead. A couple beads of water budd off of the nozzle, but it is definitely not leaking. So… why can he still hear dripping?

Cussing, because he knows Alis will get in the shit if anything’s been left on, he abandons his attempt at relaxation in favor of inspecting the rest of the showers. Armed with his phone, he still cannot find any faulty culprits. Given how the pool is secure, that leaves only one option: he was a complete nitwit and had accidentally nudged a tap on during his big mental breakdown in the dark earlier, which honestly didn’t sound completely out of character.

With an impressive string of insults muttered to himself, he walks back over to the toilets and turns the corner to examine the sinks.

None of the taps are dripping, but something is amiss. Something is very amiss.

The mirrors are leaking.

Not just that one which he screwed about with, but the row of three mirrors combined all appear to have some impossible, black liquid seeping from them. He must have missed it for a while, because the craps all over the floor, so close that he only has to reach down to touch two fingers to it. It’s warm. He draws his fingers back to sniff it, but whatever scent it may have is overpowered by that of the chlorine sticking to him. So he tastes it.

Sadly, it’s not fun mirror milkshake or who knows what he was expecting. It’s blood.

“What,” he says, standing, “the fuck.” This little mantra gets repeated over and over again as the sinks start vibrating as if there were an earthquake, which would be a really nice explanation for all this were the ground upon which Varian stood not stock still. By their own accord, the tap dials begin twisting round and around, then reversing twice as fast, and as if that wasn’t fucking awful enough, what comes out of them is more of that black stuff that Varian refuses to acknowledge as blood.

The f-word cascades out of his mouth over and over as - he can’t look except for the fact that his eyes refuse to look away - an arm snaps out of the middle mirror. It splays around, slipping across the tiles of the wall around it, before it manages to claw a grip into the tiling. Another arm follows, snapping into position much quicker. The flow of blood from the mirrors breaks into a full out wave, rushing across the floor to gush over Varian’s bare feet. _Why is it warm_ , is all he can think. _Why does it have to be_ warm?

Those arms, grey-black in the poor lighting, brace themselves and wrench whatever follows forward. Varian doesn’t stay to find out. Skidding across the slippery ground beneath him, he bolts back to the showers without thinking. All he knows is that he has to hide from that _thing_ , and no way in hell is he fucking about with locks and clothing when he’s surely, surely, having a cold induced panic attack. Surely that is all this is. Please let that be all this is.

Diving into a crouch, he sheltered behind the corner of the shower block. Forced to rely on his hearing, he shoves a fist into his mouth to stop himself from whimpering as he hears flesh squelching against the bloodied floor, the gentle slap of liquid against hard surfaces as it moves. Footsteps.

He refuses to breathe. He could not move even if he wanted to. If he can just stay quiet enough then maybe-

His phone screen lights up with a picture of his sister and Nesta kissing under the eiffel tower, accompanied by an oh so innocent ‘ding’. How cliched. Killed by the rise of modern technology. His grandparents would be so thrilled.

Cracking open his eyes, his heart nearly stops when he sees the pair of feet right before him. All those other times he was paralysed in fear. This time, he looks up. “Varian, right?” The demon asks. Something on his face must have given it its answer, because it reaches down a hand and stares right at him.


End file.
